2020 M&M Election
-
Deal is off the table with the pre written proposals.
You screwed up and you know it. Blocking me on discord to disallow resolving matters privately proved to me you're not really willing to work things out.
I was never told you were going to post up, and ftx screwed up by not taking our proposals and sharing.
-
Just to keep honest, I wrote this up, so you will see something similar when I can actually finish it off:
Morax’s Maps & Modifications Councilor Application for 2020
FAF Community,
If you have not heard, it was requested that the vote for M&M councilor take place now. I have been the M&M councilor for the past years and for those who have not been here since the start, and are looking for some background, here is my original application back in late April / early May of 2019: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17394&hilit=morax+councilor&start=50
The only reason I can think of why the election did not take place at the annual mark is due to the pandemic disrupting schedule, my lease ended and bought a home (was busy moving), and maybe because of a lack of interest in others having the vote? Regardless, it is taking place now.
For the most part, I am unchanged in most of my views, except in that I believe one major issue is at hand: the management of the vault showrooms. This includes both the mapping and modification ones, so pay attention to what I would like to do going forward:
Vault Management for Maps
Facts ( numbers are from Downlord Client as of 09/01/2020
There are 248 pages of maps in the vault at the moment of writing
This amounts to approximately 20 (number of maps shown on each page) by 98 pages for a total of 4,900+ uploads.
The first map uploads were not possible until 2.5 years into the existence of FAF (typical “Soon [
]” slow development capability!)Part of the responsibility of the FAF map and mod council is to decide how the community sees and has access to contributions from map and modification authors, and it is hardly ever a fun process: there are plenty of people that have no regard for others, they take others’ work without permission (call it their own), and in general a lot of quite unfinished work goes in.
Let us start by taking a look at the latter vault page:
https://i.imgur.com/fGwpUGD.png
Now let us look at the listings on what is currently page 1 in the client:
https://i.imgur.com/nNkweWj.png
In my observation, the average quality has not really improved by much, and therefore that is a problem. Per many requests, authors that spend a greater deal of time making something more interesting see their content “buried” by new uploads, and spare their creation ending up in the ladder pool, or advertised by the promotions council, they average # plays is abysmal: a low 10 or less. That is, not really, helping anyone get their work out to the community.To help demo maps that really show off what the game can do, we created the “M&M Top Picks” showroom that permanently keeps content created by authors who pour their heart into creations:
https://i.imgur.com/u89yg4Z.png
You can read about why it was made here to better understand its history: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17820
Still, this did not really do much, and a lot of the community has still voiced - in my research - disdain for the level of content one finds in the vault. I don’t have good data here on this as it never was something I did, so your vote for myself or whomever runs against me will have to be based on whether you agree with me or not.
Long story short, I gave up on managing the vault recently after others did as well. With so little people managing FAF, it became apparent it is not the best focus; yet, we still do want to try and boost the quality of the additions. There are good maps and mods in the vaults, but one has to sift through pages upon pages to really find anything.
That is why, I would like to present the following idea to FAF:
First, see my original post here - https://forum.faforever.com/topic/3/m-m-map-vault-plans-for-fall-2020-and-on
Whitelist Vault System 2020 (and on) for Forged Alliance Forever:
The main showroom, what is known as “Most Recent” will become a whitelist showroomwhere authors are given permission, and unlimited access will be given.
CARE must be taken to keep to the vault rules and regulations as a author can be removed for multiple violations
One can become a whitelist author by applying for it, and show a few maps, with demos, to the M&M team to show they can at least grasp the basic rules.
Authors who ARE NOT on the whitelist STILL can upload to the vault!
A person who hosts their uploaded map can expect players that join to be able to see information and download the map
There is no blocking of content: anything will be allowed, regardless of whether it follows the rules (maybe spare egregiously broken ones, hacked)M&M team can work on other valuable pieces of content like tutorials, video reviews, learning new things themselves, and best of all: be a lot less stressed by people.
Will the author permission system be as strict as the M&M top picks list? Not even close… I simply want to dodge having entirely low-effort maps go into the vault and have to spend so much time chasing people around.
For reference (and this is not complete), here is a running list of authors I believe should be a part of the whitelist vault without question, starting Day 1:
Farmsletje
Mozart
biass
FTXCommando
Petric
svenni_badbwoi
Robustness
lilsidlil
Size
borgcubejanitor
MadMax
Jip
speed2
Exotic_Retard
keyser
Chosen
Saske_Kaske
Mikkz
This_Guy
CurrySmuggler
Box-
Lionhardt
Blodir
Tokyto_
Blue_Owl
CookieNoob
Krapougnak
Molotov
Marlo
lextoc
DesertWolf216
Raymorend
F-Odin
Sandokan
SoviertPride
Arhurt
MichaelRosen
Plasma_Wolf
Gingerbreadman
AchievedCheetah8
barmaleushko
StrangePotion
seero
Winged_Mind
Ajack
DeathWolf99
deGRONDDateNoob
MadCat
iBeaver
TheBestUsername
Hell
eptaceps
Snoop
Kiliax
Hellgich
Freedom
BRNKOINSANITY
Picco
silly_noob
Degulum
TheBlackWolf
EvanGalea
SiwaonaDaphnewen
Pl4t_
GrunttiNoob
seraw
Chipi
H-Master
Capricious
Wifi_
Montana
Warner-Valholl
Evildrew
Nequilich
Hawkei
ika_m
Bodabubdub
AwareIt is my hope that, if you take a look at the maps created by those people above, you will see it is not overly strict, nor condemning.
Other Thoughts:
It really blew my mind away how much time was spent being a “vault policeman” over other things as the FAF M&M councilor. I do realize, as I am getting more and more busy with work, that is more difficult to produce content and run the council. But I will remind people that, as a FAF council member, you only need to commit to a minimum time a week, which is believe it or not, 2 hours.
My goal with this proposal and application, is to get some headway on the project, and begin working on more advanced content assistance. The community does not have a lot of modifications nor authors, so that needs attention next. We work at the availability of software development time, so things are planned and often not executed for months, maybe a year or more.
If anyone has any questions about other matters not discussed here, or in my original application, feel free to inquire and I will respond in this post.
Morax
-
That isn't really my "official" reply to biass since he decided to basically take my idea and one up it... This is a complete mess since no one said "okay go post" and you put me on the clock when I'm not really available to finalize my post.
That's a real fair election in that no one said when we would do what.
I find it absurd to be reading "Morax is delaying" when both of you messed up:
Yup... https://imgur.com/gallery/dEeko3u
I'm not trying to start a war and cast stones at biass, but I'm also not going to let him ridicule my ideas and then get hasty with me. I took a long time to write my first m&m application for 2019 to now, and it made for a much clearer, and more in depth review of want I want to say.
-
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
Deal is off the table with the pre written proposals.
You do not decide how this election works. You cannot change the plan at random to suit your needs and expect to get away with it.
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
Blocking me on discord to disallow resolving matters privately proved to me you're not really willing to work things out.
You've spent the past couple of weeks, since the start of this scenario, flooding my private messages with abuse and vitriol. There is no attempts to resolve matters. You've been attempting to make it seem like I didn't have a chance, and trying to scare me away by threating to "expose" my "bs." This is not acceptable for a councilor or even for an adult. As I said to you when I finally - after weeks of getting pm'd with unsavory comments almost every single day - I don't have to deal with your abuse.
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
I was never told you were going to post up, and ftx screwed up by not taking our proposals and sharing.
FtX messed up by not taking the finished proposals that you already sent to him, and agreed that it was finished by sending it to him and saying it was and posting them both at the same time.
I don't care if you post your thing and then reply to mine (as you post your proposal while I write this) but don't cheat.
-
You broke the boundary as shown in the chat I had with him, so good luck saying it's "cheating."
-
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
You broke the boundary as shown in the chat I had with him, so good luck saying it's "cheating."
My proposal went through mutiple people - with some of those having relevant qualifications - peer review with no issues, and it also passed through FtX's approval and was allowed to post here. It was only decided that the comments made were not acceptable when you tried used that as rationale to destroy the process of election.
You already had more time to work on your stance, and I've had to temper what I say while you attack me in your proposal with no reprimand.
The users of FAF are relying on this election to dicate how they can enjoy the game and the client. I would ask that you took this process with more dignity.
-
Yeah, and I'm going to ensure they get full honesty instead of sugar-coated statements.
I have no problem stating that the quality control I think is good is what is best to improve a product.
No product ever improved by allowing people to do as they please.
Folks, both biass and I want to work hard and get things done. Both of us want a level of differing control, and openness to keep things fun.
Either one, you're going to get a tough , experienced person to talk to.
You make the pick on who you think is better, but ask for honesty rather some run of the mill soap box speech that's basically like listening to a professional politician read off a teleprompter.
-
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
Then let's have an open election instead of this closed off one
As I said:
@biass said in 2020 M&M Election:
you tried used that as rationale to destroy the process of election.
You can see past iterations of a users posts with the small box above a users profile image.
Feel free to post a followup and thank you for finally abiding to the correct procedure of finally posting your - prewritten - stance. You can understand why I needed to call attention to cheating like this, because cheating isn't something befitting a leadership role.
FtX has already posted why this election is closed off and nobody else has appeared to discuss their proposals with me like I suggested they did. I have nothing else to do here besides allow the userbase the make their desicion. good day to you.
-
That's not my final post, so you're going to have to wait a little longer.
-
Wouldn't it have been better to have two different threads for discussion about each proposal?
This thread is already hard to follow and half of it, not that constructive. Maybe keep the discussion about the actual election to discord...
-
@scytale said in 2020 M&M Election:
Wouldn't it have been better to have two different threads for discussion about each proposal?
I'm okay with making a seperate thread. I had written my post in such a way so that I could hide most of it in spoiler tags, reducing the absolutely asinine size when posted. This forum doesnt allow spoilers for some reason.
I'll let other peopls weigh in on that first, however.
-
I just wanted to note for those reading this that the list of map authors that Morax said he would day-1 approve for his whitelist is a small minority of mappers with a clearly biased list (I don't want to name names here out of concern that that could start tangential flamewars, but feel free to pm me if you want to ask). Even if he doubled or tripled that list, it would still be a small minority of mappers. So, Morax's plan to remove the regular 'most recent' maps list would make it harder to find/discover the large majority of maps on FAF. It would also disincentivize many potential new mappers from getting started with map-making.
I also wanted to point out that Morax's claim that the average not hidden or removed map on the vault that isn't showcased gets "10 or less" plays is just blatantly wrong. (I don't know where he got such a baseless claim. I've looked over the play-counts of thousands of maps on the vault, and the average is much higher.) However, if the 'most recent' maps list is removed like Morax wants, I could easily imagine his claim of most maps getting 10 or fewer plays becoming true, unfortunately.... -
Why is there a 46 post thread just for two people to post their applications? I don't want to read all this shit.
-
I think posting your ideas in simple bullet points would be easier at this rate. Going back and reading this from top to bottom would take an hour best case scenario. So if possible please clean this up and make it easier to read.
-
I'll make it simpler to follow, use a separate thread. If folks and biass are okay (which I think he is) with it.
We can use this thread as a panel to ask questions for candidates.
Penguin, sure, but I don't have any feedback other then that's what I believe in. If you have a direct question, let me know.
-
I am not entirely sure why this whole thing is complicated. Have a minimum standard for maps - textures, naming, balanced etc. and that is it.
Improve the search feature and there you go. Players will play a map they enjoy more than once, ones they do not enjoy, they will not play.
@Morax said in 2020 M&M Election:
We can use this thread as a panel to ask questions for candidates.
If that is the case, then this thread needs a clean up.
-
I am not entirely sure why this whole thing is complicated. Have a minimum standard for maps - textures, naming, balanced etc. and that is it.
That's literally what we already have. Both of them mention why that doesn't work and why they are suggesting other things...
-
I'd say thus far that both interests have been applied and questions of content have the base material present to ask about. As such, without further detail of observation, I'd say in regards of the interest the general idea of direction is reasonable, but still seeming to maybe lack an interest in which I can respond to in detail without further observation of detail to say.
My take on maps tends to be different than others and as such the interest in which they could be handled at a time take a different priority. I understand that the quality of content is questionable for interests of interest and that the reasonability of the specific is usually only determined by the detail to say in which is covered. Assessing what is assigned than assigning the assigned still seems the reasonable over in which there is still to have, process as such is what question(s) there are for the interests.
If an accord can be agreed in which there is to elect without the lack of decree, then the efforts should say still retain their tenure, with or without any further chore.
If such, I hope to take the observed into greater detail and perhaps reply in due kind, but I wouldn't hold my breathe if I was you, but time may allow though of course, don't get me wrong.If you can't understand what I said, that is o.k., for the time is all the same at the time really.
Thanks
-
Curiosity got the better of me and spent some time going through the FaF M&M discord and whatever else has been going on. There is what I could only describe as a lot of "not okay conduct". It really doesn't seem like a space that encourages new map makers, at times the direct opposite. I am not okay with this process being a closed election. The entire process should involve the community much much more.
-
It really doesn't seem like a space that encourages new map makers, at times the direct opposite.
I've been on there for a while and mostly just see people being helpful when someone asks how to do something? Really would like some actual examples, because that's a completely different impression than I have.
Also, the "closed election" thing has already been discussed; if you have new ideas share them and tell us how you want to accomplish them. Otherwise this complaint is just a waste of time.
